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News and Market Developments
McKnight's Home Care: Medicare Advantage Rates Are Tightening. Post-Acute Strategy Matters More Than Ever (3/4) – CMS proposed a near-flat 0.1 percent update in Medicare Advantage payment rates for 2027 even as medical costs rise, with post-acute care, and particularly home health, growing faster than any other Medicare spending category. The article argues that MA plans must invest in coordinated, value-based post-acute strategies that manage referrals, align incentives around outcomes, and integrate care across settings to reduce readmissions and avoidable costs. These findings support the need for a SNF at Home initiative.
The New York Times: Our Hospice System Subverts the Very Point of Hospice Care
(3/2) – Cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar argues that Medicare's hospice funding, averaging roughly $200 per patient per day with an annual cap of $33,500, is so inadequate that agencies are forced to shift the bulk of caregiving responsibilities onto families, undermining the founding principles of hospice care around pain relief, dignity, and psychological support. Drawing on his family's experience caring for his father with end-stage Alzheimer's and a patient denied a comfort medication as too costly, Jauhar contends that the system creates an unviable alternative to institutional care for families without significant resources or medical training. He calls for a minimum floor of in-home aide hours funded through higher Medicare hospice budgets, noting that roughly three-quarters of hospice agencies are now for-profit and many are private equity-owned. This further strengthens the need for additional support for caregivers.
The Hospitalist: Expanding Pediatric Hospital Capacity Through a Pediatric Hospital-at-Home Unit in a Large U.S. Children's Hospital (3/2) — Atrium Health Levine Children's Hospital in North Carolina launched a comprehensive U.S. pediatric hospital-at-home program in February 2025, screening 1,942 patients and enrolling 57 in its first five months. The program includes virtual physician visits, in-home paramedic care twice daily, and remote monitoring for stable pediatric patients and showcases a growing trend of hospital-at-home programs outside of Medicare.
American Medical Association (AMA): Lawmakers Extend CMS Hospital-at-Home Waiver for Five Years (3/2) – The AMA highlighted the five-year waiver extension as one of eight major wins for patients and physicians in the latest federal budget deal, noting that hospital-at-home has demonstrated lower mortality rates, fewer hospital-acquired conditions, lower post-discharge costs, and the ability to free up inpatient beds for patients who cannot be treated at home. The AMA pointed to results from health systems including Marshfield Clinic, which achieved a 44 percent reduction in readmission rates and a 35 percent drop in average length of stay, and Ochsner Health, which saved more than 1,000 bed-days in less than a year of operation.
Becker's ASC: CMS Extends Hospital-at-Home Waivers for 5 Years: What ASCs Need to Know (3/2) – This explainer for ambulatory surgery center (ASC) leaders frames the five-year waiver extension in the context of shifting surgical volumes, noting that hospital-at-home programs are emerging as an important tool for optimizing inpatient-outpatient flows as more procedures move to ASCs and outpatient settings. The piece highlights that 366 programs across 139 health systems in 37 states are now approved to provide acute hospital care at home, and that another report found two-thirds of Americans aged 60–79 want to remain at home in their later years.
Medium: Aging at Home Is More Than a Care Problem. It's an Incentive Problem. (3/1) – This article argues that the core barrier to sustained aging-at-home is not information fragmentation or workforce shortages but misaligned incentives: every participant in a patient's post-discharge journey (including hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, health plans, home health agencies, physicians, and families) behaves rationally within their own framework, yet no single actor is accountable for longitudinal resilience once the episode ends. The author contends that this gap hits hardest for middle-income older adults who qualify for neither public supports nor private care coordination, and that meaningful change will require aligning what the system measures and rewards with where risk actually lives: at home. The incentive argument aligns closely with MHH’s work on post-acute care at home.
Chief Healthcare Executive: Why Hospital-at-Home Programs Could See Big Growth (2/25) — The five-year Medicare waiver extension is expected to drive significant growth in hospital-at-home programs after years of uncertainty, with Mass General Brigham's Dr. Shiv Sutaria predicting a "monumental shift" in how health systems and tech companies approach home hospital care. Tampa General Hospital CEO John Couris added that the model produces better results, costs less, and that transplant and complex oncology patients are already being discharged home a week earlier than before.
Modern Healthcare: The Emerging Technology That Could Help Hospital-at-Home Expand (2/24) – With the five-year Medicare waiver extension prompting providers to scale their hospital-at-home programs, technology companies are racing to address common operational pain points. Tools in development or on the market include AI-based staff and supply logistics platforms from Cardinal Health and Current Health, a wearable fall-detection sensor from Vivalink, computer vision technology to calculate patient vitals during telehealth visits, and drone delivery services from Zipline, which counts Memorial Hermann and Cleveland Clinic among its upcoming health system partners and intends for the technology to eventually serve hospital-at-home programs.
McKnight's Home Care: Improving Cardiac Outcomes, Costs and Experiences This American Heart Month (2/23) – With heart failure patients readmitted at nearly a 20 percent rate within 30 days of discharge, the article argues that in-home care is uniquely positioned to close gaps that facility-based care misses including medication adherence, nutrition access, home safety and comorbidity management. In-home clinicians can monitor cardiovascular status alongside conditions like COPD and diabetes, while remote patient monitoring enables earlier detection of deterioration before it escalates to hospitalization.
Becker's Health IT: Baptist Health Rolls Out Hospital-at-Home Program in Jacksonville (2/23) – Florida-based Baptist Health launched Baptist Hospital at Home at Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville, providing 24/7 acute care services to clinically stable inpatients who meet criteria set by an emergency medicine or hospital physician. Patients receive a personalized care plan including a daily virtual physician visit, 24/7 virtual nursing oversight, at least two in-person visits per day from a community paramedic, and a full range of inpatient-level services; Baptist Health provides all necessary equipment and does not require patients to have home internet access. The program is currently available at Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville, with plans to expand to Baptist Medical Center South and other adult hospitals in the system. This expansion continues the growth of the hospital-at-home program post-waiver extension.
Healthcare IT News: One Physician's Committed Effort to Bring Virtual Kidney Care to Rural Georgia (2/23) – Dr. Sharica Brookins founded Remote Renal Care in 2018, Georgia's first 100 percent telehealth nephrology practice, after a personal emergency revealed that her rural patients in Waynesboro lacked transportation to reach specialists and had no one to cover their care in her absence. The program has used telehealth and remote patient monitoring to deliver virtual kidney care to patients who would otherwise go without access to subspecialty nephrology care.
Healthcare IT News: Q&A: Hospital-at-Home Has a Five-Year Runway to Show Success (2/20) – Dr. Caroline Yang, a Mass General Brigham Healthcare at Home provider, expressed optimism about the five-year extension of pandemic-era hospital-at-home waivers, noting that industry innovation had been "paused and anxiously waiting on the sidelines" and that the runway through 2030 will allow health systems to invest in workforces, adopt new technologies, and build a data-driven case for permanent policy. The five years should be used to improve clinical pathways, expand remote monitoring, and standardize workflows and that outcomes, effectiveness, safety, and quality data collected during this period will be essential to advocating for making the program permanent.
McKnight's Home Care: Complex Therapies Are Moving Home — and the System Is Finally Ready (2/19) – The article argues that infusion therapy is at an inflection point, driven by the rise of specialty biologics for chronic disease, the normalization of hospital-at-home models, and the maturation of clinical governance frameworks for complex home-based therapies. The author contends that the key question is no longer whether complex infusions can be delivered safely at home, but which ambulatory infusion organizations can operationalize safety, documentation, and payer alignment at scale. Aligning economics, policy, and care delivery infrastructure makes this a structural shift rather than a temporary one.
MobiHealthNews: VCU Health on Hospital-at-Home and RPM Governance (2/18) – David Collins, director of digital home and senior services at VCU Health, discussed Virginia's first hospital-at-home program and a new RPM initiative for the NICU. Collins emphasized that enabling digital health at home requires more than technology; it demands clinical and operational champions, EHR integration from the outset, proactive management of connectivity challenges, and strong vendor partnerships, with all components carrying equal weight to establishing a standardized governance framework.
NeurologyLive: AI for Dementia Caregiver Training Could Reduce ER Visits and Transform Neurological Care at Home (2/16) – Neal K. Shah, CEO of CareYaya Health Technologies, argues that the near-total lack of formal training for family dementia caregivers, only about 1 in 12 informal dementia caregivers have received any caregiving training, is a major driver of unnecessary emergency department visits, as untrained caregivers encountering behavioral crises call 911 rather than manage symptoms at home. Shah describes YayaGuide, an NIH-funded AI platform developed at Johns Hopkins that delivers personalized, micro-learning dementia care training to family caregivers through short adaptive modules and conversational coaching, tailored to the specific stage of disease, behavioral triggers, and caregiver's learning pace.
HealthLeaders: Five Benefits Your Hospital Can Realize Today with Integrated Remote Patient Monitoring (2/12) – This article outlines five data-supported benefits of continuous remote patient monitoring: improved patient satisfaction, earlier detection of clinical deterioration and improved in-hospital outcomes, decreased administrative burden for clinicians, AI-enabled vital sign trending for more proactive care, and seamless hospital-to-home monitoring for patients discharged while still in early recovery.
Wharton Healthcare Quarterly: Breaking the Walls: Scaling Acute Care in the Home Beyond Technology (2/11) -- DispatchHealth Chief Medical Officer Pippa Shulman argues that scaling hospital-at-home requires logistics infrastructure including people, supplies, and clinical workflows as much as technology. Shulman outlines DispatchHealth's care continuum spanning ER-in-the-home through transitional care and highlights a Cleveland Clinic Florida study published in JACC: Heart Failure showing that patients with acute decompensated heart failure can be safely hospitalized at home. On policy, she calls for permanent reimbursement parity between hospital and home-based acute care, expanded post-acute coverage, and workforce investment, arguing that continued reliance on temporary waiver extensions stifles innovation and perpetuates an institutional bias in care delivery.
Becker's Health IT: Mass General Brigham Enters 'Growth Mode' After CMS Hospital-at-Home Waiver Extension (2/11) – For the hospital-at-home team at Mass General Brigham, the five-year waiver extension has shifted focus from contingency planning to strategic expansion, with 2026 priorities including new clinical pathways in oncology and postoperative care, exploration of behavioral health services and dementia clinical trials in the home, and evaluation of machine-learning tools to identify eligible patients earlier. Leaders emphasized that the model's long-term future depends on policy permanence, noting that hospital-at-home generates additional value beyond fee-for-service through reduced readmissions, lower post-acute utilization, and lower total cost of care.
Modern Healthcare: Hospital-at-Home Waiver Jumpstarts Health Systems' Programs (2/10) -- The five-year Medicare waiver extension is prompting health systems to aggressively launch or expand hospital-at-home programs before reimbursement parity ends. Technology vendors including MHH Members Current Health and Biofourmis are accelerating investment in new tools. Additionally, NYU Langone is expanding to surgery patients, Virtua Health plans a mobile integrated health program for chronic conditions, Mass General Brigham is piloting behavioral health and dementia care at home, and Tampa General Hospital aims to evolve into a full "health system-at-home."
Fierce Healthcare: Family Health Provider Nest Health Launches In-Home Prenatal Services (2/9) — Nest Health launched Nest Origin, an in-home prenatal program for Medicaid members in New Orleans, offering nine prenatal visits with certified nurse midwives including routine care, screenings, and fetal monitoring. Louisiana had the highest maternal mortality rate in the U.S. in 2023, and the program aims to address transportation and childcare barriers to prenatal care access.
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